A tech start-up based in Bude has raised $150,000 (£120,000) in early-stage investment from TinySeed — a one-year remote accelerator programme designed to increase the world’s population of independent Software as a Service (SaaS) companies.

SEOTesting.com is a remote-first business based in Bude and was founded by Nick Swan who has been working in SEO since 1998. He was joined by technical co-founder Phill Duffy in September 2021 and together they are planning to invest the £120,000 funds in to product development and marketing.

SEOTesting.com is designed to help people who work on website search engine optimisation (SEO) to grow search traffic from Google through thorough experimentation and testing.

The online tool was first released in April 2020 and has quickly built a customer base of more than 300 customers, including global businesses such as L’Oreal, Unilever, Shopify, Canva and Carwow, as well as being used by in-house SEO professionals, digital agencies and content-based websites.

TinySeed is a US-based fund that was launched in 2018 by Einar Vollset and Rob Walling. It invests in 12 to 15 small software start-ups per batch, offering a remote one-year accelerator programme that includes funding and mentorship.

TinySeed does not ask for a fixed profit or revenue share from those it invests in, instead the companies are encouraged to use the money to grow, be it through contractors, design, marketing or salaries.

SEOTesting.com founder Nick said: “We are really excited to be in the latest batch of SaaS businesses that TinySeed has invested in. It’s great to get external confirmation from the partners of TinySeed that SEOTesting.com is a tool with good growth and future prospects.

“While the cash will make a big difference, we are also looking forward to networking with the other founders TinySeed has backed. Being a remote-first company, having an established TinySeed community of other business founders to put questions to and seek feedback from is hugely valuable.”